Letters
by CeruleanShockwave
Summary: Kageyama has been snappier and ruder than usual, but when he pushes it too far, he ends up being kicked off the team. But little do Karasuno know that Kageyama is dealing with his own issues, and that they have just sent him over the edge. Slowly, they'll unravel Kageyama's darkest secrets through a series of letters he's left behind for them - and find out why he killed himself.
1. Chapter 1

" _Shut up,_ you dumbass!" Kageyama screamed loudly. "Just _shut up_! I'm sick and tired of hearing about how your dad is so awesome, he gets you stuff all the time and plays with you, and how your mom makes the best cookies, and how your little sister is so, so cute! I've had _enough_ of it!"

Hinata froze in rage.

 _What right does this bastard have to say that? If he doesn't want to listen, he doesn't have to! Just because he doesn't have a sister!_

"What did you just say, Kageyama?" asked Daichi in a dangerous voice.

Colour rushed to Kageyama's cheeks. "Oh my God, I – I am so sorry," his eyes widened in fear. "I didn't mean that, I swear I didn't-"

"But you said it!" cut in Yamaguchi angrily. "You said it!"

"That's it, Kageyama," Daichi frowned at him sternly. "Your moods have been getting worse and worse. We don't want a player like that on the team, you get it? You're officially off until you can find a way to make it up to Hinata!"

Kageyama stared at Daichi for a second before whipping around, grabbing his bag and practically flying out of the gym, leaving the rest of the Karasuno team standing there in utter shock.

"I didn't know Kageyama could get this nasty," said Sugawara eventually. "Daichi… for once, I think he actually deserved the punishment you gave him."

Daichi nodded grimly. "That was unacceptable, Suga," he said. "Hinata," and here he turned to the short middle blocker, "I'm sorry he said that to you,"

Hinata, red in the face, nodded. "It's fine, Daichi-san," he said. "He doesn't get off saying that to anyone!"

They had a good long bitching session after that about Kageyama, with even Sugawara joining in, all of them throwing in spiteful comments and words about his rude, reckless behaviour.

"I don't care!" Hinata had roared. "I don't care about him!"

Somehow, Hinata didn't feel lighter after it – in fact, his heart felt heavy and burdened – but shook it off as anger from what the setter had said to him.

* * *

Kageyama felt a strange satisfaction as he stood on the cliff edge, arms spread-eagled.

He was ready. He knew it.

Ready to die. Ready to leave this earth forever.

And yet… doubts crept in.

 _What of my mother? Will she miss me?_

He scoffed at that one. The woman who had beaten him bloody every day for the past five years, miss him? Hah, nice idea.

 _What about the others on the team?_

He again scoffed at his deluded thoughts. Nobody cared. He had snapped. He was vile, foul and disgusting. Wasn't that why all his teammates at Kitagawa Daiichi had hated him so much? He was a human being not fit to live in the same timeline, on the same earth as people like them.

 _Hinata? Will he miss me?_

Oh, that was laughable. Hadn't he heard Hinata yell how he didn't care about him at all?

Kageyama should have known. He wasn't fit to even look at a beautiful ray of sunshine like Shoyo Hinata was. And yet, he had. He had committed a sin by simply being in the life of the one he loved most. And now he had hurt him.

He didn't deserve to live.

And so, he jumped.

Kageyama felt the cool breeze on his cheeks one last time, felt the rush of air around him one last time, and didn't even notice when he crashed headfirst into the rocks.

His vision went black instantly. He knew nothing more.

Tobio Kageyama would never wake again.

* * *

 _The next week_

Hinata, despite himself, was worried.

Kageyama hadn't shown up to school an entire week. And Hinata being Hinata couldn't take it. His anger seemed inconsequential compared to what could have happened to the dark-haired setter.

Hinata fretted at his lower lip.

"Uh, Daichi-san?" he asked nervously.

"Yeah, Hinata?" Daichi replied with a kind smile.

"Um, Kageyama hasn't shown up to school for a whole week. Even though I'm pissed at him, I don't want something serious to have happened!" Hinata exclaimed fretfully.

Daichi's face was set.

"All right," he said eventually. "Why don't we go to Kageyama's house after school and find out?"

"Yeah," agreed the rest of the team.

"Even though he's an idiot," began Tanaka.

"And a rude, self-centred dumbass," piped up Ennoshita.

"We should still check on him," finished Nishinoya.

* * *

The team made their way slowly to Kageyama's house, and Hinata rang the bell.

 _Ding-dong!_

 _Ding-dong!_

 _Ding-dong!_

He rang three times, but there was no answer.

Frowning, Hinata quickly located the spare key and opened the door.

He was met by a layer of dust covering everything in the house.

Sugawara frowned worriedly.

"Isn't Kageyama a neat freak?" he asked. "Why would he keep his house this way?"

"I don't know, but something's not right," said Hinata warily. "Be alert, guys."

They slowly made their way upstairs, into Kageyama's room.

Hinata sat down on the musty bed, and his eyes widened when he felt a thin rustling of paper where he sat down.

He ripped back the covers to find a cleanly printed letter, in beautiful kanji calligraphy, obviously Kageyama's.

The letter's flap read – _To Hinata._

Hinata's heart stopped, and he flipped the letter open.

 _Dear_ _Hinata_ _– no, dear Shoyo,_

 _I am so sorry. I never meant to say that to you. Natsu, your sister, is a lovely young girl, and you're so lucky to have her. Your parents are really nice too. I just lost it because – and I get that this is no fair reason, but still – you see, I had a sister. A half-sister. She was only six, and she died in an accident last week. And I – I couldn't cope with it. I'm already depressed, and you were the only thing that kept me going._

 _And, I hurt you. So Shoyo, I'm sorry. I never meant any of the horrid things I ever said to you. I never did, I swear! I – I guess I'll never get a chance to tell you this face to face, so I'll do it here._

 _I love you. I love you more than the stars and the sun and the moon. I can't say I love you more than life itself because my life has never been worthy enough of any love. I know, I'm an ungrateful brat, and Shoyo… I won't come back to school. I won't ever come anywhere again._

 _If you're reading this…_

 _Shoyo, I'll have killed myself by the time you're reading this. I've left some letters for you and everybody to read. It's my story – why I wanted to die. If you don't read them, I understand. I'm just worthless, anyway. Why would you want to know more about me?_

 _But if you do – if, and only if – the first one is hidden in my favourite place in my house. You'll know – you always do._

 _If this means anything to you, you were the only thing tethering me to this earth. You and Aiko, my little sister. Otherwise I would've been gone a long time ago. You probably never would have met me. So much the better for you and your life. I'm glad that that day, you said you didn't care about me. I was afraid you did. You'll only lose by caring for a thing like me._

 _Shoyo, I love you more than anything I've ever loved with my stupid, worthless heart. I am a waste of space, and I'm glad I'm freeing this world from me. It – and you – don't deserve me; you deserve much, much better._

 _Please forget me. I don't deserve to be remembered._

 _Love,_

 _Tobio Kageyama,_

 _12 July 2015_

Hinata's heart stopped.

"Hinata?" Sugawara asked concernedly. "What happened?"

Hot tears began to stream down Hinata's face as he flung himself forward and clung to Sugawara's jacket.

He began to wail. "Suga-senpai, oh, I'm so sorry, it's all my fault, please, I'm sorry, he's gone, he's _gone_ and he's _never coming back-_ "

"Hinata, you're not making any sense," said Daichi soothingly. "Calm down a little and then talk, okay?"

Hinata removed his teary face from Suga's jacket and roared at Daichi, " _How can I be calm when Kageyama killed himself because of me?!_ "


	2. Chapter 2

Daichi staggered back in shock.

" _What?!_ " he exclaimed. "What the hell, Hinata?"

"it's true!" continued the orange-haired boy, still weeping uncontrollably. "Kageyama killed - killed himself because - because of me!"

Sugawara, looking floored, put his trembling arms around Hinata's shaking form. "Shh, Hinata, it's going to be okay, I promise," he said soothingly, and it seemed to calm Hinata a little.

Luckily he couldn't see Suga's face. The setter's lips were trembling and his eyes were teary. You could see that he was both shocked and resigned.

"He - committed suicide?" said Yamaguchi in the silence that followed. His eyebrows were drawn together in worry and fear.

"Yeah," Hinata answered, thrusting a paper at him. "Read it for yourself,"

Yamaguchi opened up the sheet and began to read out loud.

 _Dear Hinata, no, dear Shoyo,_

 _I am so sorry. I never meant to say that to you. Natsu, your sister, is a lovely young girl, and you're so lucky to have her. Your parents are really nice too. I just lost it because – and I get that this is no fair reason, but still – you see, I had a sister. A half-sister. She was only six, and she died in an accident last week. And I – I couldn't cope with it. I'm already depressed, and you were the only thing that kept me going._

"He - did have a sister," Tsukishima gasped, eyes wide and tone stupefied. "And, she, she died? That's - that's so messed up. And... depression? Oh God, what has he been dealing with? The way we - the way I treated him - God, if I'd only known!"

Daichi saw his younger teammate's eyes mist over, saw the blonde dash his tears quickly away, and set his own shoulders firmly, even though he could feel hot tears pricking at the back of his eyelids.

Tsukishima was doing the right thing. He didn't deserve to cry, and neither did Daichi, or Hinata.

None of them deserved to be able to cry.

"Hinata," Daichi said roughly. "Stop bawling."

Sugawara looked at him, shaking his head.

"No, Suga," Daichi repeated. "He doesn't deserve to cry. None of us do. We - we did this."

Suga nodded and removed Hinata's face from his shoulder. "Come on, Hinata," he said gently. "That's enough now. Daichi is right."

With surprising resolve, Hinata rubbed away his tears and sat up, taking deep, juddering breaths, small frame trembling like he was caught in a storm.

Yamaguchi wiped at his eyes, as did all the other members of the team, and continued to read.

 _And, I hurt you. So Shoyo, I'm sorry. I never meant any of the horrid things I ever said to you. I never did, I swear! I – I guess I'll never get a chance to tell you this face to face, so I'll do it here._

Hinata began to choke up again.

"Oh, God, you didn't hurt me, you didn't, you didn't! You - stupid Kageyama, apologising for things you never really did wrong!"

Yamaguchi smiled sadly and, sniffing a couple of times, read the next paragraph.

 _I love you. I love you more than the stars and the sun and the moon. I can't say I love you more than life itself because my life has never been worthy enough of any love. I know, I'm an ungrateful brat, and Shoyo… I won't come back to school. I won't ever come anywhere again._

At this, Hinata broke.

"Kageyama - you stupid idiot, Tobio, I loved you - too... I loved you too! And I never said it, and now you're gone and - stupid, stupid, Kageyama!" he sobbed, tears flowing like rivers down his cheeks.

Suga wiped them away firmly and held the younger boy, whispering soothing things into his ears and making sure he didn't weep.

Daichi motioned for Tanaka to take the sheet and continue, since Yamaguchi didn't seem to have the energy to.

Tanaka's loud voice quietened as he began to read.

 _If you're reading this…_

 _Shoyo, I'll have killed myself by the time you're reading this. I've left some letters for you and everybody to read. It's my story – why I wanted to die. If you don't read them, I understand. I'm just worthless, anyway. Why would you want to know more about me?_

"Oh - oh god," Ennoshita whispered. "Oh, God, he's been dealing with these kinds of thoughts and we didn't even - know!"

 _But if you do – if, and only if – the first one is hidden in the kitchen. In that place. You'll know – you always do._

Hinata stiffened. "Tobio..." he said, tone full of an anguish all of them shared.

 _If this means anything to you, you were the only thing tethering me to this earth. You and Aiko, my little sister. Otherwise I would've been gone a long time ago. You probably never would have met me. So much the better for you and your life._

" _NO!_ " Hinata's shout echoed through the empty house. "No, oh, God, no! If... if I hadn't met you..." He dissolved into even more tears.

 _I'm glad that that day, you said you didn't care about me. I was afraid you did. You'll only lose by caring for a thing like me._

Nishinoya paled. "He _heard_ Hinata? He stayed behind and listened to all of it?"

Tanaka dropped the letter and wiped furiously at his watering eyes. "We - we did this," he choked out, refusing to let himself cry.

Tsukishima picked up the paper and glanced over it once, regret welling up in his usually emotionless eyes. Then he began to quietly read out loud, though his voice echoed through the heavy silence.

 _Shoyo, I love you more than anything I've ever loved with my stupid, worthless heart. I am a waste of space_ _and I'm glad I'm freeing this world from me. It – and you – don't deserve me; you deserve much, much better._

Hinata screamed. It was a scream of agony and anguish.

Daichi felt like screaming too. How had he not noticed? Kageyama was one of his, one of _theirs_. They had noticed when Tanaka stopped chasing after Kiyoko and had begun to go after Ennoshita instead - how had they not seen what their teammate was going through?

"We never tried," Suga murmured quietly, and with a start, Daichi realized that he'd said it all out loud. "We all chose to ignore it."

 _Please forget me. I don't deserve to be remembered._

"No, Kageyama. I couldn't," Narita whispered. Asahi had begun to cry too, and Noya was looking grimly up at the ace, shaking his head, even though his own large eyes were wet.

Asahi gulped and wiped at his tears.

 _Love,_

 _Tobio Kageyama,_

 _22 December 2015_

"A week - a week ago exactly," Hinata whispered, standing up. "What'd he say about the next one?"

He had stopped weeping. His brown eyes shone with a steely determination to find everything he had left of the boy he had never known he loved.

"In the kitchen. In a specific place that you'd know about, apparently," said Tsukishima immediately, the same fire burning in his eyes. His near-perfect photographic memory was serving him well, it seemed.

"All right," Hinata turned, and without a word, fled from the room.

* * *

Hinata dragged a chair up to the kitchen counter and climbed onto it, feeling for a rough paper on top of the tallest cabinet. He wasn't disappointed when his fingers brushed against a corner and he yanked the sheet down, scanning it anxiously.

In Kageyama's unmistakably neat handwriting was printed a '1', and Hinata tore back upstairs, where the rest of the team was waiting for him with bated breath.

"Well?" asked Daichi.

Hinata waved the sheet in the air.

"Let's read it," he said firmly. "Can I go first?"

"Yes, of course," said Sugawara kindly.

Hinata ripped the letter open and pulled out a sheet of paper, covered in beautifully written characters.

He looked down at the sheet and took a deep breath.

And began to read.

* * *

 _Hello, guys. This is Tobio._

 _I guess, if you're reading this, you actually might care a little? Bad idea. Drop the damn letter and forget about me, okay?_

 _But, well, I didn't want to waste space trying to discourage you from reading this - I wanted these to tell my story, so here goes._

 _I was eight when it all went to hell._

 _My father - a perfectly happy, fine man - had married my mother, a former alcohol addict who'd turned over a new leaf when she met Dad. We were happy and good. It was all good._

 _Then one day, my dad found out that my mother had been cheating on him for half a year. She'd even done 'it' with the other man._

 _Dad left that day. I never saw him again. He never called, never texted, not even to me - and this was when not even a week ago he told me he loved me more than anything in the world. I hated him for a long time after that - didn't he love me at all?_

Honor thy father and thy mother, _says the Sixth Commandment. I hated both my parents - one for leaving, one for staying. Why couldn't Dad have taken me?_

 _I hated myself too - I was disobeying God's word, and that hurt like acid._

 _Eventually, I learned he had died in a car accident a few months after he'd left the house, and I stopped hating him. My parents weren't officially divorced - they were never officially married, anyway, so it didn't matter. I took my father's name to remember him in a happy light._

 _Mom, well, she turned back to drinking. Every night, she'd be out partying. She would yell and throw things at me because she thought I was the reason Dad left. I tried my hardest to forget that a father had ever existed in my life._

 _But one thing - if there was one thing I could not obliterate from myself that was Dad's, it was his faith. His belief in the Lord and that he would save us all._

 _The Lord will not save me. I know that. I do not deserve to be saved._

 _I want to go to Heaven. I know I'm probably on the way to Hell._

 _But I'm happy that he is saving those who should be saved. Aiko was rescued from what would have been a life of painful toil and almost zero results by death. He took her to him and now he'll be keeping her as an angel at His side._

 _I am glad for my cross. It reminds me of the awful truth of His framing and killing - that not all is good and fair, but one must accept what one is given in life._

Hinata's voice broke.

"He tried to be happy about the sick lot life gave him," he said out loud.

"He - it's obvious how much he believed in God," Kinoshita muttered. "That faith should've saved him. He _deserved it_ , goddamn it!"

 _But it didn't, did it,_ was the universal thought of all the members of the team.


End file.
